Cheap and easy way to keep orchard weeds in check

Posted on
Jan 21, 2017

Two years ago I watched the amazing back to eden
documentary. The authors discussed the
benefits of wood chips and how they enhance the soil. The results in the
video were amazing so I decided to implement something similar in our
orchard. Prior to starting our orchard was filled with a mixture of
weeds, clover and various types of grass. If I just put down wood chips
everything would just grow right back through and I would have a massive
mess. So I needed to come up with a way to snuff them out and prevent
seeds from germinating the following year.

I was discussing this with one of my co-workers at lunch and he said he
had amazing luck using old cotton bed sheets. They are permeable and
natural so I decided to give is a try. We asked our friends and
neighbors for old sheets and cleaned out a bunch of unused sheets we had
been squirreling away in our linen closet. I also spend about $20 on
old sheets at the salvation army. After collecting enough sheets I set
out on Saturday morning to lay 2 layers of sheets everywhere I saw green
stuff growing. Here is a picture taken halfway through this project:

The sheets were then covered with roughly 10 cubic yards of wood chips
from a local tree service to keep them in place. To keep our turf grass
separated from the orchard we installed a stone edge between the grass
and the newly mulched orchard. The results so far have been fantastic!
The stone edging looks awesome and very few weeds have grown back. Most
of the sheets have now been devoured by worms so the wood chips can now
start to break down naturally. Now to reap the benefits!